>> I'm not up on Satanism (although a major thread as I understand it is a foundation and worship of logic and curiosity, not necessarily Samahain and blood spilling

We've had the word satanist in our language for a long time, most (AFAIK) in reference to devil worshiping, but within the last centaury (i think within the last 30 years, could be wrong) its seen and entirely new use, IMO it was copted for a particular combination of philosophies, and most modern day 'satanist' have nothing to do with devil worshiping.

massage...

you know i think we are in total agreement then...

theism is religion, not A religion.
atheism is religion, not A religion.

they are, in effect two adjectives describing the personal system-of-beliefs (A religion). Under atheism, i am supposing you have Weak Atheism, Strong Atheism, again, adjectives describing your atheistic religion. your atheistic system of beliefs is a religion though, and that is what my original point was making.

Atheism is to religion as Key Lime is to gelatin
Christianity is to religion as Jell-O is to gelatin

>> you have religion, but it's not A religion with a neat name, its A religion unqiue to your individual tailoring.

Post are out of sync, I had not read this one when I had posted my last one.

>> i do mix various degrees of the term, and that is my fault.

I see nothing wrong with it, as long as it doesn't cause confusion. I just wanted to know if we are on the same page - i'm pretty sure that you do indeed acknowledge the use (which i describe as more mainstream) of 'religion' which clearly does not apply to atheism, and you use the word religious yourself in that way... And you also advocate a -different- use of the word religion (like most other words in our language, doing multiple chores), being simply -any- system of beliefs, even entirely personal ones, and ones which have -no- prerequisite qualities except that its a system of beliefs.

>> Atheism is religion, not A religion.

Grammatical pain in the ass, it is!!! I see validity in the foundation of your claims, but still disagree, based on the post I posted after you wrote this (but before i read it).

"original point was making" should be "original point".

Huh, I've made over a dozen significant typing mistakes, leaving out whole words...apologies and thanks inferencing readers.

>> you know i think we are in total agreement then...

On trans-semantic levels I think we were in agreement from the get go... but semantically, no I still do not agree. In previous posts I explored things from your point of view as best I could, which may have mis-represented my degree of actual agreement, but I still don't think that atheism qualifies as religion - obviously not the memetically complex-yet-unified variety, but also not the system-of-beliefs kind.

Outside of a living thinking mind, I don't see atheism as a 'system' of beliefs, there is just one belief involved. The human mind has the system of beliefs regardless, atheism is just one quality of it.

I'm thinking of how glass beads appear colored by their environment. The person is atheist, and the person has religion, atheism is a component of their personal religion, but it cannot be said to -be- their personal religion unless it was the whole of their personal religion.

>> your atheistic system of beliefs is a religion though, and that is what my original point was making.

Based on the definitions we are currently using, of course this is true.

..

Yes Tom..soccer goes...sorry

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!



As a side-note...I always get confused when people call me Tom, cause my screen name is actually a nickname of mine -Tomo

I'll be reading posts and wondering, "Who the heck is this Tom guy?"

cough

Wildone, if you would like to see the original topic discussed in more detail, it is okay to start a new thread. We have thoroughly hijacked this one, it may seem like a 'tired thread' to some people, and others would not want to read through the entire thing just to continue the original conversation. Even the act of looking back through 5 pages to find a particular post to follow-up on creates a little resistance for some people. Maybe this conversation has refined the question in your mind, and a new thread might even be slightly different. Please understand that I'm NOT saying its a bad idea to keep this one alive, not at all! I'm just saying, depending on what you want, you might get better results with a new thread in the same vein.